There are a few people we owe a Wookiee Life Debt to. One of them is a man who shall be known as Beeeg Red, for he is logically a big, red man. Back in '94-95 we would roll 45 miles down to Redwood City for donuts at Chuck's in the middle of the night. We collaborated on completely goofball collegiate writing projects. We would sit around and watch John Woo movies on Saturday nights drinking Bali Blast and Kiwi-Strawberry Snapple, wondering how to get that pretty blonde girl in the flannel shirt with the phenomenal boobs to date one of us. He took her to a Liz Phair show in San Francisco. I sang Dio to her in a pizza restaurant in Concord. Neither of us met with success. We were fucking corndogs.

And while said Jalopnik-of-mass-disinterest rocked the red '75 El Camino, Beeeg's vehicle may have been even cooler. A pale-blue Volvo 142 (alternately known as The Blue Meanie or The Vulva), which as the father of the Boxy-But-Good era of Swedemobiles must certainly go do down as one of the most influential forgotten vehicles of all time. While the 1 didn't have the longevity of its practically-unkillable 2-series sibling or its DAF-derived 3-series half-brother, the 1 set the template for roughly two-and-a-half decades of Volvos. And it's still pretty freakin' rad. A moment of silence, please. Bless you, Brother 1. Bless you Blue Meanie. Amen.